ELSEVIER''''S DICTIONARY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES phần 3 potx

121 commodities or opportunities. The realistic conflict theory also suggests that as such competition persists, the members of the groups involved come to view each other in increasingly negative ways, much as indi- cated in the image theories. The concept of conflict has been invoked, also, in the his- tory of psychology by the German philoso- pher/educator Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841). Based on the popular assump- tion that elementary bits of ideas or experi- ences may combine harmoniously into wholes, Herbart taught that ideas them- selves may come into relation with each other through conflict or struggle, as well. Thus, according to Herbart, ideas that are incapable of combining tend to compete with one another, and this competition oc- curs in order to gain a place in conscious- ness. Recent writers, including the psycho- analysts, emphasize that objects of thought do not conflict with each other because they are in logical opposition, as Herbart pro- posed, but because they lead to divergent lines of conduct; ideas are in conflict if they lead individuals to do opposite things. The concept of conflict may be found, also, in the area of visual perception. For example conflict of cues have been discussed rela- tive to demonstrations of the influence of visual context upon monocular and binocu- lar perception; surprising, sometimes star- tling, effects have been produced in the “Ames room demonstrations” [named after the American psychologist Adelbert Ames, Jr. (1880-1955) who set up demonstrations involving a series of illusions, and includ- ing distorted rooms so constructed that sizes and shapes in them appear to be dis- torted even though the actual trapezoidal room itself appears to be rectangular when viewed mon-ocularly; (see Appendix A, also)], such as seeing someone changed into a giant or a dwarf, and red spots on playing cards change to black - because of sheer congruity and the perceiver’s “need for internal unity.” In the Ames room situa- tion, affective and familiarity factors may destroy the intended illusion. For example, the Honi effect/phenomenon refers to the failure of the well-known perceptual distor- tion effects of the Ames room to occur when a very familiar person such as a par- ent or spouse is placed in the room [in 1949, the American psychologist A. Hadley Cantril (1906-1969) observed that a woman, nicknamed “Honi,” while viewing her husband in the Ames room reported that there was no distortion in her husband’s size as he walked along the back wall of the room, which is contrary to one’s perception of unfamiliar persons walking along the same route in the room; thus, the main fac- tor that seems to determine whether a per- son will or will not seem to be distorted in the Ames room is whether or not that per- son produces anxiety in the observer; anxi- ety-producing persons appear to be less distorted]. The term conflict, when used in the area of psychoanalysis, refers to a pain- ful emotional state that results from a ten- sion between opposed and contradictory wishes and is due, theoretically, to the fact that an unconscious (repressed) wish is forcibly prevented from entering the con- scious system (cf., psychic/psychical con- flict - the condition under which two con- tradictory tendencies oppose each other in a person’s mind; some such conflicts are conscious, as when a desire is opposed by a moral constraint, but it is unconscious con- flicts that Sigmund Freud assumed to gen- erate neurotic symptoms; also, according to psychoanalysis, such conflicts between ideas are traceable, theoretically, to con- flicts between instincts). The term major conflict refers to the more dominant emo- tional state in a current conflict between opposed and contradictory wishes. Actual conflict is a presently occurring conflict where, in the psychoanalytic context, such conflicts are assumed to derive from “root conflicts” (i.e., the underlying conflict that is assumed to be primarily responsible for an observed psychological disorder; cf., nuclear conflict, which tends to be used in a broader fashion). Nuclear conflict is a fun- damental dilemma occurring during infancy or early childhood that is assumed to be a root cause of a number of psychoneurotic disorders that may emerge only later in life. For Sigmund Freud, the Oedipus complex fulfilled this hypothesized role; for Karen Horney, it was a child’s feeling of helpless- 122 ness; and for Alfred Adler, it was feelings of inferiority. The term basic conflict is Horney’s term for the fundamental conflicts that emerge when “neurotic needs” are discoordinate. In Horney’s theory of per- sonality, the term central conflict is the psychic conflict between one’s “real self” and one’s “idealized self.” The term con- flict-free ego sphere is Heinz Hartmann’s concept in his ego theory for the part of the ego called “primary autonomy,” which includes the individual’s perception, motil- ity, and memory. In the area of measure- ment and statistics, the concept called con- flict index, or C, is a statistic that gives an exact value for the total amount of energy that an organism (or other dynamic system) has bound up internally. Thus, conflict theories, and the versatile concept of con- flict, have been used widely, among other things, to refer to individual or group pref- erences for incompatible actions in a given learning or motivation situation, to particu- lar aspects of different psychoanalytic theo- ries, to philosophical analyses concerning ideas, to perceptual demonstrations, to a statistical index, and to practical contexts involving resolution and resolution therapy, cooperation and competition, and ne- gotiations and mediation situations. See also ADLER’S THEORY OF PERSONAL- ITY; AGGRESSION, THEORIES OF; DECISION-MAKING THEORIES; DEUTSCH’S CRU-DE LAW OF SOCIAL RELATIONS AND RESOLUTIONS; EGO DEVELOPMENT, THEORIES OF; EQ- UITY THEORY; ERIKSON’S THEORY OF PERSONALITY; FESTINGER’S COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY; FREUD’S THEORY OF PERSONALITY; HAWK-DOVE AND CHICK-EN GAME EFFECTS; HORNEY’S THEORY OF PERSONALITY; LEWIN’S FIELD THE- ORY; PREJUDICE, THEORIES OF. REFERENCES Lewin, K. (1935). A dynamic theory of personality. New York: McGraw- Hill. Miller, N. E. (1944). Experimental studies in conflict. In J. McV. Hunt (Ed.), Personality and the behavior dis- orders. New York: Ronald Press. Horney, K. (1945). Our inner conflicts: A constructive theory of neurosis. New York: Norton. Neumann, J. von, & Morgenstern, O. (1947). Theory of games and economic behavior. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Deutsch, M. (1950). A theory of coopera- tion and competition. Human Re- lations, 2, 129-152. Miller, N. E. (1951). Comment on theoreti- cal models illustrated by the de- velopment of a theory of conflict. Journal of Personality, 20, 82- 100. Ittelson, W. (1952). The Ames demonstra- tions in perception. Princeton, NJ: Prin-ceton University Press. Hartmann, H. (1958). Ego psychology and the problem of adaptation. New York: International Universities Press. Miller, N. E. (1959). Liberalization of basic S-R concepts: Extensions to con- flict behavior, motivation, and social learning. In S. Koch (Ed.), Psychology: A study of a science. Vol. 2. New York: McGraw-Hill. Deutsch, M., & Krauss, R. M. (1960). The effect of threat upon interpersonal bargaining. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 61, 181- 189. Siegel, S., & Fouraker, L. (1960). Bargain- ing and group decision-making: Experiments in bilateral monop- oly. New York: McGraw-Hill. Sherif, M., Harvey, O., White, B., Hood, W., & Sherif, C. (1961). Inter- group conflict and cooperation: The Robber’s Cave experiment. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Epstein, S., & Fenz, W. (1965). Steepness of approach and avoidance gradi- ents in humans as a function of experience: Theory and experi- ment. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70, 1-12. Miller, N. E. (1971). Selected papers on conflict, displacement, learned 123 drives, and theory. Chicago: Al- dine. Pruitt, D. (1972). Methods for resolving conflicts of interest: A theoretical an-alysis. Journal of Social Is- sues, 28, 133-154. Toomey, M. (1972). Conflict theory ap- proach to decision-making ap- plied to alcoholics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychol- ogy, 24, 199-206. Deutsch, M. (1973). The resolution of con- flict: Constructive and destructive processes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Epstein, S. (1982). Conflict and stress. In L. Goldberger & S. Breznitz (Eds.), Handbook of stress. New York: Free Press. Moore, C. W. (1986). The mediation proc- ess: Practical strategies for re- solving conflict. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1989). Cooperation and competition: Theory and research. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Co. CONFLICT/COMMUNIST THEORY OF CRIMINALITY. See LOMBROSIAN THE-ORY. CONFLICTING ASSOCIATIONS, LAW OF. See SKINNER’S OPERANT CONDITIONING THEORY. CONFLUENCE THEORY. See ZA- JONC’S AROUSAL THEORY. CONFORMITY HYPOTHE- SIS/THEORY. See ALLPORT’S CON- FORMITY HYPO-THESIS; ASCH CON- FORMITY EFFECT. CONGRUENCE-OF-IMAGES THE- ORY. See SELF-CONCEPT THEORY. CONGRUENT TRANSCENDENCY THE-ORY. See LIFE, THEORIES OF. CONGRUITY THEORY/PRINCIPLE. See FESTINGER’S COGNITIVE DISSO- NANCE THEORY. CONJOINT MEASUREMENT THE- ORY. The American mathematical psy- chologist Robert Duncan Luce (1925- ) and the American statistician John Wilder Tukey (1915-2000) developed conjoint measurement theory which involves a pro- cedure/method for constructing measure- ment scales applied to objects having mul- tiple attributes so that attributes may be traded off against one another, and where the scale value of each object is viewed as a function of the scale values of its compo- nent attributes. This approach may be used to determine whether apparent interaction effects come from actual interactions among the underlying attributes or if they are artifacts of the specific measurement model employed. Other general and spe- cific terms related to conjoint measurement theory are the following: axiomatic meas- urement theory (or abstract measurement theory) - study of the correspondence be- tween measurements of psychological or extra-psychological attrib- utes/characteristics and the attributes them- selves; measurement model - study of the relationship assumed to exist between nu- merical scales recorded as data in an em- pirical investigation and the attrib- ute/characteristic being measured; multipli- cative model - study of the expression of an effect as a weighted product of several in- dependent/manipulated variables, so that if any of the independent variables is zero, then the value of the dependent/measured variable, also, is zero; multiplicative models may be divided into those that can be con- verted into additive models (via monotonic transformations of their independent and dependent variables) and those that cannot be converted (“non-additive models”); axiomatic conjoint measurement theory - study of the qualitative aspects of data to determine the optimal way to scale the data; numerical conjoint measurement theory (or conjoint analysis) - study of an assumed, particular composition rule and its relation- ship to scaled data while attempting to ar- 124 rive at an additive model solution. See also MEASUREMENT THEORY. REFERENCE Luce, R. D. (1971/1989). Foundations of measurement. New York: Aca- demic Press. CONNECTION, LAWS OF. See REIN- FORCEMENT, THORNDIKE’S THEORY OF. CONNECTIONISM, THEORY OF. See ASSOCIATION, LAWS/PRINCIPLES OF; PARALLEL DISTRIBUTED PROC- ESSING MODEL; REINFORCEMENT, THORN-DIKE’S THEORY OF; SCALAR TIMING THEORY. CONNECTIONIST MODEL OF HU- MOR. The American cognitive scientist Bruce F. Katz (1993) proposes a neural connectionist model of humor that purports to have advantages over the traditional “incongruity-resolution” theory. The neural model consists of two “disjoint” con- cepts/entities that are stored in a neural network and whereby the concepts are con- nected to two “external triggers” that simu- late the role of internal and external factors that activate the concepts. According to this model, the appropriate timing of the trig- gers may result in a high, but unstable, arousal condition in which two incongruous concepts are possible for a brief period of time. Such a “boost/arousal” state may occur both in cases where an incongruity is resolved or merely where the incongruities are simultaneously present. Theoretically, when the thresholds of the neural units are lowered, humor effects (especially in cases of tendentious humor - humor that advances a definite point of view or, in psychoana- lytical terms, humor that involves the re- lease of libidinal drives) are associated with greater activation levels than are available normally. See also COGNITIVE THEO- RIES OF HUMOR; FREUD’S THEORY OF WIT AND HUMOR; HUMOR, THEORIES OF; INCONGRU- ITY/INCONSISTENCY THEORIES OF HUMOR; INCONGRUITY-RESO- LUTION THEORIES. REFERENCES Zillman, D., & Bryant, J. (1980). Mis- attribution of tendentious humor. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 16, 146-160. Katz, B. F. (1993). A neural resolution of the incongruity-resolution and in- congruity theories of humour. Connection Science: Journal of Neural Computing, Artificial In- telligence, and Cognitive Re- search, 5, 59-75. CONSCIOUS ILLUSION THEORY. See LIPPS’ EMPATHY THEORY. CONSCIOUSNESS, PHENOMENON OF. Consciousness is the ability to demon- strate awareness and to process sensations, thoughts, images, ideas, feelings, and per- ceptions; it is also the capacity of having experiences, the central affect of neural reception, the subjective aspect of brain activity, the relation of self to environment, and the totality of an individual’s experi- ences at any given moment. Whereas E. B. Titchener (1867-1927), the major American proponent of the school of “Structuralism,” declared that psychology is the “science of consciousness,” J. B. Watson (1878-1958), the founder of the psychological school of “Behaviorism” (cf., Meyers’ psychological theories), insisted on relegating the phe- nomenon of consciousness to the sphere of mythology or to the “rubbish heap of sci- ence” [Roback (1964); cf., Sutherland (1996) who suggests that nothing worth reading has been written on the issue or phenomenon of consciousness]. The consis- tent and pervasive fascination with the no- tion of consciousness within, as well as outside of, psychology derives from the strong and intuitive sense that it is one of the basic defining features of the human species. To be human, say some investiga- tors, is to be able to study and reflect on our own conscious awareness and to “know that we know.” Historically, the phenomenon of consciousness has been especially popular in the areas of Structuralism and psycho- analytic theory, but today is finding re- newal as a topic for scientific study in the 125 areas of neuropsychology, language, and cognition. E. R. Hilgard (1977) suggests that it is useful to assign two modes to con- sciousness (cf., Shallice, 1972): a receptive mode and an active mode, where the former is reflected in the relatively passive regis- tration of events as they impinge on one’s sense organs, and the latter is reflected in the active, planning, and voluntary aspects of behavior; both of these modes are dem- onstrated in the special problems of a “di- vided consciousness” or “divided control.” Occasionally, the phenomenon of con- sciousness is equated with the term “self- consciousness” wherein to be conscious it is only necessary for one to be aware of the external world. Some skeptical writers, notably the behaviorists, assert that con- sciousness is an interesting, but elusive, phenomenon: it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it evolved [cf., Reese (2001, p. 229) who states that “very little, if any, progress has been made in a century of research on consciousness; we are not even closer to having a satisfac- tory definition of the term”]. See also BE- HAVIORIST THEORY; DISSOCIATION THEORY; IMAGERY AND MENTAL IMAGERY, THEORIES OF; LIFE, THEO- RIES OF; MEYER’S PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES; MIND-BODY THEORIES; SELF-CONCEPT THEORY; UNCONSCI- OUS INFERENCE, DOCTRINE OF. REFERENCES Roback, A. (1964). History of American psychology. New York: Collier. Sperry, R. (1969). A modified concept of consciousness. Psychological Re- view, 76, 532-536. Ornstein, R. (1972). The psychology of consciousness. San Francisco: Freeman. Shallice, T. (1972). Dual functions of con- sciousness. Psychological Re- view, 79, 383-393. Penfield, W. (1975). The mystery of the mind: A critical study of con- sciousness and the human brain. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer- sity Press. Tart, C. (1975). States of consciousness. New York: Dutton. Globus, G., Maxwell, G., & Savodnik, I. (Eds.) (1976). Consciousness and the brain. New York: Plenum Press. Schwartz, G., & Shapiro, D. (Eds.) (1976). Consciousness and self- regulation. Advances in research. Vol. 1. New York: Plenum Press. Hilgard, E. R. (1977). Divided conscious- ness: Multiple controls in human thought and action. New York: Wiley. Jaynes, J. (1977). The origin of conscious- ness in the breakdown of the bi- cameral mind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Hilgard, E. R. (1980). Consciousness in contemporary psychology. An- nual Review of Psychology, 31, 1- 26. Sutherland, S. (1996). The international dictionary of psychology. New York: Crossroad. Baars, B. (1997). In the theater of con- sciousness. New York: Oxford University Press. Hemeroff, S., Kaszniak, A., & Scott, A. (Eds.) (1998). Toward a science of consciousness. II. The second Tucson discussions and debates. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press. Tononi, G., & Edelman, G. (1998). Con- sciousness and complexity. Sci- ence, 282, 1846-1851. Reese, H. W. (2001). Some recurrent issues in the history of behavioral sci- ences. Behavior Analyst, 24, 227- 239. Zeman, A. (2001). Consciousness. Brain, 124, 1263-1289. Lambie, J. A., & Marcel, A. J. (2002). Con- sciousness and the varieties of emotion experience: A theoretical framework. Psychological Re- view, 109, 219-259. CONSERVATION OF ENERGY, LAW/ PRINCIPLE OF. See GESTALT THE- ORY AND LAWS; JUNG’S THEORY OF PER-SONALITY; THERMODYNAMICS, LAWS OF. 126 CONSISTENCY THEORY OF WORK BEHAVIOR. See WORK/CAREER/OCCU-PATION, THEORIES OF. CONSOLIDATION HYPOTHE- SIS/THE-ORY. See FORGET- TING/MEMORY, THE-ORIES OF. CONSTANCY HYPOTHESIS. = percep- tual constancy. This hypothesis, as em- ployed in the area of perception psychol- ogy, states that perceived objects tend to remain constant in size where their distance from the observer (and, thus, the size of their retinal images) varies (cf., theory of misapplied constancy - states that the inap- propriate interpretation of cues in the per- ception of certain illusions is the result of the observer’s having previously learned strong cues for maintaining size constancy). Also, according to the constancy hypothesis in this perceptual context, objects tend to remain constant in shape (when the angle from which they are regarded - and, thus, the shape of their retinal images - varies), in brightness (when the intensity of illumina- tion varies), and in hue (when the color composition of illumination varies). In general, perceptual constancy is the ten- dency for a perceived object to appear the same when the pattern of sensory stimula- tion (i.e., “proximal” stimulus) alters via a change in distance, orientation, or illumina- tion, or some other extraneous variable. Thus, there are constancies regarding color, lightness, melody, object, odor, person, position, shape, size, velocity, and words. The term Brunswik ratio [named after the Hungarian-born American psychologist Egon Brunswik (1903-1955)] refers to an index of perceptual constancy expressed as: (R-S)/(A-S), where R is the physical magni- tude/intensity of the stimulus chosen as a match, S is the physical magnitude/intensity for a stimulus match with zero constancy, and A is the physical magnitude/intensity that could be chosen under 100 percent constancy; the ratio equals zero when there is no perceptual constancy, and 1.00 when there is perfect constancy; and the Thouless ratio [named after the English psychologist Robert H. Thouless (1894-1984)] which is a modification of the Brunswik ratio, taking Fechner’s law (i.e., S=k log I) into account, where the perceptual constancy ratio be- comes: (log R – log S)/(log A – log S). The constancy hypothesis hold up well with changing conditions if the observer has information about the changing conditions but, when one’s ability to judge the total situation is reduced (e.g., as by a “reduction screen” such as looking at the object through the small peep hole made in your hand when you make a fist), then the con- stancy is reduced. The constancy phenom- ena have been known for a long time (cf., Boring, 1957). Color constancy was known to Ewald Hering in the 1860s, and bright- ness constancy was known to David Katz in the early 1900s. The idea of size constancy was known to the natural philosopher P. Bouguer before 1758, to the chemist J. Priestley in 1772, to the physi- cist/physiologist H. Meyer in 1842, to the physiologist C. F. W. Ludwig in 1852, to P. L. Panum in 1859, to G. Fechner in 1860, to E. Hering in 1861, to E. Emmert in 1881, to G. Martius in 1889, to F. Hillebrand in 1902, to W. Poppelreuter in 1911, to W. Blumenfeld in 1913, and to W. Kohler in 1915 - all of whom described or experi- mented on the phenomenon. See also BRUNSWIK’S PROBABALISTIC FUNC- TIONALISM THEORY; CONDILLAC’S THEORY OF ATTENTION; CON- STANCY, PRINCIPLE OF; EMMERT’S LAW; FECHNER’S LAW; GESTALT THEORY/LAWS. REFERENCES Brunswik, E. (1929). Zur entwicklung der albedowahrnehmung. Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 109, 40-115. Thouless, R. H. (1931). Phenomenal re- gression to the real object. I., II. British Journal of Psychology, 21, 339-359; 22, 1-30. Leibowitz, H. (1956). Relation between the Brunswik and Thouless ratios and functional relations in experimen- tal investigations of perceived shape, size, and brightness. Per- ceptual and Motor Skills, 6, 65- 68. 127 Boring, E. G. (1957). A history of experi- mental psychology. New York: Apple-ton-Century-Crofts. Myers, A. K. (1980). Quantitative indices of perceptual constancy. Psycho- logical Bulletin, 88, 451-457. CONSTANCY, PRINCIPLE OF. This general principle has at least two important meanings in psychological theory. In one case, for the areas of physiology, cognition, emotion, and motivation, the notion of con- stancy derives from the first law of thermo- dynamics (dealing with “conservation of energy”) in physics and may be considered as a basis for the principle of homeostasis where organisms are motivated to maintain biological constancy of bodily functions and mechanisms (such as temperature regu- lation and hunger reduction), and psycho- logical balance among mental/cognitive mechanisms. In another case, in the area of psychoanalysis, the principle of constancy refers to the proposition that the amount of “psychic energy” within the person’s men- tal processes remains constant so that regu- lation of mental stability may be achieved either through discharge of excess energy (as via “abreaction” or release of emotional energy following the recollection of a pain- ful memory that has been repressed), or through avoidance of an increase of excess energy (as via “ego defense mechanisms” or patterns of thought, behavior, or feeling that are reactions to a perception psychic tension or danger which enable the person to avoid conscious awareness of cognitive conflicts or anxiety-arousing wishes/ideas). In the latter usage, however, psychoanalysts have been suspect in their employment of the principle of constancy as being contra- dictory or ambiguous (cf., quota of affect - a quantity of instinctual energy that remains constant despite undergoing displacement and various qualitative transformations; in mental functions, a quota of affect, or “sum of excitation,” possesses all the characteris- tics of a quantity which is capable of in- crease, decrease, and dis- charge/displacement and which, theoreti- cally, is spread over the memory-traces of ideas, similar to an electric charge that spreads over the surface of the body). For example, Sigmund Freud (1920/1953) ap- parently confuses the reduction and extinc- tion of psychic energy with its regulation; thus, in his application of the nirvana prin- ciple to psychoanalysis (that is, the ten- dency for the amount of energy in one’s mental apparatus to reduce to zero), Freud defined this psychic-economy principle (derived from Buddhist/Hindu philosophy where “nirvana” is a psychic state achieved by the extinction of all earthly desires) in an ambiguous way as the principle of the men- tal apparatus for extinguishing - or at least of maintaining it at a low level - the amounts of excitation flowing into the men- tal apparatus. See also CONSTANCY HY- POTHESIS; FESTINGER’S COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY; FREUD’S THEORY OF PERSONALITY; GEN- ERAL SYSTEMS THEORY; HOMEO- STASIS, PRINCIPLE OF; HUNGER, THEORIES OF; HYDRAULIC THEORY; LIFE, THEORIES OF; SOLOMON’S OP- PONENT-PROCESS THE-ORY OF EMOTIONS/FEELINGS/MOTIVA-TION; THERMODYNAMICS, LAWS OF. REFERENCES Freud, S. (1894/1964). The neuro- psychoses of defence. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. London: Hogarth Press. Freud, S. (1920/1953). Beyond the pleasure principle. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. Lon- don: Hogarth press. CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES OF PERSONALITY. See KRETSCHMER’S THEORY OF PERSONALITY; SHELD- ON’S TYPE THEORY. CONSTITUTIONAL- PREDISPOSITION THEORY OF SCHIZOPHRENIA. See SCHIZOPHRE- NIA, THEORIES OF. CONSTRUCTIVISM, THEORIES OF. The doctrine/theory of constructivism refers to the way in which memories, perceptions, 128 cognitions, and other complex mental struc- tures are assembled actively (or “built”) by one’s mind, rather than merely being ac- quired in a passive manner. Two prominent versions of constructivist theory are the radical constructivism of the Swiss psy- chologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) and the social constructivism of the foreign-born American sociologists Peter L. Berger (1929- ) and Thomas Luckmann (1927- ). Piaget’s theory is based on the assumption that children construct mental schema and structures by observing the effects of their own actions on the environment (e.g., in “adaptive accommodation” and “assimila- tion,” the psychological struc- tures/processes of the child are modified to fit the changing demands of the situation, as when an infant in a crib reaches out and attempts to get a toy from outside the crib to the inside through the crib’s vertical slats by simply turning the toy slightly side- ways/vertically to get it past the slats and into the crib). Social constructivist theory emphasizes the manner in which people come to share interpretations of their social milieu (cf., doctrine of liberal pluralism - asserts that the individual is at the center of efforts to improve human welfare, and states that societies are to be created where people of diverse backgrounds may pursue their personal welfare and coexist with a minimum of conflict; and doctrine of situ- ated knowledge - an approach that arose from cultural studies and feminist criticisms of science, as a challenge to the objectivity of scientific knowledge, on one hand, but aiming to avoid complete relativism, on the other hand; this doctrine represents a per- spective of “positioned rationality,” whereby knowledge allegedly may emerge only from multiple- and partial-positioned viewpoints; it is opposed to the notion of “transcendence” which asserts that knowl- edge is “universal;” the doctrine states that knowledge must be seen from the perspec- tive of the knower, the relationships among knowers, and the relationship between the knower and the object of knowledge). Gen- erally, social constructivists argue for rather extreme positions, including the idea that there is no such thing as a knowable objec- tive reality - but, instead, maintain that all knowledge is derived from the mental con- structions of the members of a particular social system [cf., social-exchange theory - first enunciated by the American sociolo- gist George Caspar Homans (1910- ), who presented a model of social structure based on the notion that most social behavior is founded on the individual’s expectation that one’s actions, with respect to others, will result in some degree of commensurate (“rewards” and “costs”) return; social Dar- winism theory - first described by the Eng- lish philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820- 1903), and proposes that social and cultural development may be explained by analogy with the Darwinian theory of biological evolution; thus, the theory suggests that society functions primarily through conflict and competition where the “fittest” survive and the “poorly adapted” are eliminated; social identity theory - formulated by the English-born Polish social psychologist Henri Tajfel (1919-1982), where this “so- cial categorization” theory is based on the notion of “social identity” (i.e., the compo- nent of the “self-concept” that derives from group membership) and where social cate- gories (including large groups such as na- tions, and small groups such as fraternal clubs) provide their members with a sense of one’s “essential being” and even pre- scribes appropriate personal and social behaviors; also, members in such “social identity” groups view their groups as being superior to other groups; the minimal group paradigm/situation - studied by H. Tajfel and his colleagues in the early 1970s, refers to an experimental procedure in which the mere presence of social categorization pro- duces intergroup discrimination; theory of situated identities - the suggestion that an individual will take on different social roles in different social settings and environ- ments; the aristocracy theory - the notion that the social rank of some humans and animals is determined by their parents’ rank; and the minimal social situation effect - studied by the American psychologist Joseph B. Sidowski (1925- ), refers to an interactive decision in which each decision- maker is unaware of the interactive nature 129 of the decision and even of the existence of another decision-maker whose behaviors influence the outcomes]. See also CON- STRUCTIVIST THEORY OF PERCEP- TION; DARWIN’S EVOLUTION THE- ORY; EXCHANGE/SOCIAL EX- CHANGE THEORY; INGROUP BIAS THEORIES; PIAGET’S THEORY OF DEVELOP- MENTAL STAGES. REFERENCES Spencer, H. (1891). The study of sociology. New York: Appleton. Homans, G. C. (1950). The human group. New York: Harcourt, Brace. Piaget, J. (1954). The construction of real- ity in the child. New York: Basic Books. Sidowski, J. B. (1957). Reward and pun- ishment in a minimal social situa- tion. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54, 318-326. Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality. New York: Doubleday. Tajfel, H., Billig, M., & Bundy, R. (1971). Social categorization and inter- group behavior. European Jour- nal of Social Psychology, 1, 149- 178. Tajfel, H. (Ed.) (1982). Social identity and intergroup relations. New York: Cambridge University Press. CONSTRUCTIVIST THEORY OF PERCEPTION. This approach toward explaining perceptual phenomena and proc- esses focuses on how the mind constructs perceptions. Constructivist theory takes a number of different forms, including re- search on the connection between percep- tion/neural processing and re-search on how perception is determined by mental processing. The idea of approaching per- ception by asking what the mind does dur- ing the perceptual process is an old notion whose roots go back to the 19 th century, when the German physicist/physiologist Hermann L. F. von Helmholtz (1821-1894) proposed the likelihood principle: one per- ceives the object that is “most likely” to occur in “that particular situation.” Also, the English psychologist Sir Frederic Charles Bartlett (1886-1969) used construc- tivist concepts to explain results he ob- served in his studies on memory. Modern descendants of Helmholtz’s likelihood principle are the English psychologist Richard Langton Gregory’s (1923- ) notion that perception is governed by a mechanism he calls hypothesis testing, and by the American psychologist Ulrich Neisser’s (1928- ) notion of perceptual cycle. Hy- pothesis testing refers to a function of sen- sory stimulation as providing data for hy- potheses concerning the state of the exter- nal world. Hypothesis testing does not al- ways occur at a conscious level, and per- ceivers are usually not aware of the com- plex mental processes that occur during a perceptual act. Perceptual cycle, also called the cyclic model of perception, refers to the set of cognitive schemata that direct percep- tual processes, and the perceptual responses and feedback mechanisms through which perceptual information is sampled. The idea that mental operations occur during the perceptual process is illustrated by an early study by the German psychologist Oswald Kulpe (1862-1915): displays of various colors were presented to participants who were asked to pay attention to a particular aspect of the display (such as the positions of certain letters), but when they were asked, subsequently, to describe another aspect of the display (such as the color of a particular letter), they were not able to do it. This indicates that even though all of the information from the stimulus display reached the observer’s eye, a selection process took place somewhere between the reception of this information and the per- son’s perception so that only part of the information was actually perceived and remembered. Thus, perception seems to depend on more than simply the properties of the stimulus, and the observer/participant makes a contribution to the perceptual process. Another way that the cogni- tive/constructivist aspect of processing has been approached is by considering the eye movements that people make when observ- ing an object. According to eye movement theory (e.g., Hochberg, 1971), as an ob- 130 server looks at a scene, information is taken in by a series of “fixations” (i.e., pauses of the eye that occur one to three times per second as the person examines part of the stimulus) and “eye movements” that propel the eye from one fixation to the next. Such eye movements are necessary in order to see all of the details of the scene, because a single fixation would reveal only the details near the fixation point. Also, eye move- ments have another purpose: the informa- tion they take in about different parts of the scene is used to create a “mental map” of the scene by a process of “integration” or “piecing together.” Thus, Helmholtz’s like- lihood principle, Gregory’s idea of hy- pothesis testing, and Hochberg’s eye movement theory all treat perception as involving an active, constructing observer who processes stimulus information. The constructivist approach also assumes that perception of a whole object is constructed from information taken in from smaller parts. The essence of all constructivist theo- ries is that perceptual experience is viewed as more than a direct response to stimula- tion (cf., direct perception theory); it is, instead, viewed as an elaboration or “con- struction” based on hypothesized cognitive and affective operations and mech-anisms. See also ATTENTION, LAWS/PRIN- CIPLES/THEORIES OF; DIRECT PER- CEPTION THEORY; MIND/MENTAL STATES, THEORIES OF; PERCEPTION (I. GENERAL), THEORIES OF; PER- CEPTION (II. COMPARATIVE AP- PRAISAL), THEORIES OF; UNCON- SCIOUS INFERENCE, DOCTRINE OF. REFERENCES Kulpe, O. (1904). Versuche uber abstrak- tion. Berlin International Con- gress der Experimental Psy- chologie, 56-68. Bartlett, F. C. (1932). Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, University Press. Neisser, U. (1967). Cognitive psychology. New York: Appleton-Century- Crofts. Hochberg, J. (1971). Perception. In J. Kling & L. Riggs (Eds.), Woodworth and Schlosberg’s experimental psychology. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston. Gregory, R. L. (1973). Eye and brain. New York: McGraw-Hill. CONSUMPTION PATTERNS, LAW OF. See MURPHY’S LAWS. CONTACT HYPOTHESIS OF PREJU- DICE. See PREJUDICE, THEORIES OF. CONTEMPORANEITY, PRINCIPLE OF. This principle - derived from Kurt Lewin’s field theory - states that “any be- havior or any other change in a psychologi- cal field depends only upon the psychologi- cal field at that time.” In other terms, the contemporaneity principle, also called the contemporaneous-explanation principle and the billiard ball theory, asserts that only present or current events can influence behavior and only these should be studied. Although this principle was emphasized by early field theorists, it was misunderstood, frequently, and interpreted to mean that field theorists are not interested in historical problems or in the influence of previous experiences. Lewin (1951) notes that noth- ing could be more mistaken and, in fact, field theorists are very interested in devel- opmental and historical problems as evi- denced by their efforts to enlarge the tem- poral scope of the psychological experi- ment; for example, they recommend expan- sion of the classical reaction-time experi- ment which typically lasts for only a few seconds, as well as extending the more experiential situations in which a system- atically created history may run for hours or weeks for the experimental participants. See also LEWIN’S FIELD THEORY. REFERENCE Lewin, K. (1951). The nature of field the- ory. In M. H. Marx (Ed.), Psy- chological theory: Contemporary readings. New York: Macmillan. CONTEMPORANEOUS- EXPLANATION PRINCIPLE. See CONTEMPORANEITY, PRINCIPLE OF. [...]... Learning of visceral and glandular responses Science, 1 63, 434 -445 Powers, W (1973a) Behavior: The control of perception Chicago: Aldine Powers, W (1973b) Feedback beyond behaviorism Science, 179, 35 135 6 Schwartz, G (19 73) Biofeedback as therapy: Some theoretical and practical issues American Psychologist, 28, 666-6 73 Miller, N E (1978) Biofeedback and visceral learning Annual Review of Psychology, 29, 37 3-404... THEORY OF DISTANCE See BERKELEY’S THEORY OF VISUAL SPACE PERCEPTION CONTEXT THEORY OF MEANING See MEANING, THEORIES AND ASSESSMENTS OF CONTEXTUAL-CHANGE MODELS See BLOCK’S CONTEXTUALISTIC MODEL OF TIME; PSYCHOLOGICAL TIME, MODELS OF CONTEXTUAL ENHANCEMENT EFFECT See INTERACTIVE ACTIVATON MODEL OF LETTER PERCEPTION CONTEXTUAL INTERFERENCE EFFECT See FORGETTING/MEMORY, THEORIES OF; INTERFERENCE THEORIES OF. .. CONTRAST, LAW OF See ASSOCIATION, LAWS/PRINCIPLES OF; COLOR VISION, THEORIES AND LAWS OF; FREQUENCY, LAW OF; GESTALT THEORY/LAWS; LEARNING, THEORIES AND LAWS CONTIGUITY, LAW OF See ASSOCIATION, LAWS/PRINCIPLES OF; FORGETTING AND MEMORY, THEORIES OF; GESTALT THEORY AND CONTRAST EFFECTS See CAPALDI’S THEORY; COLOR VISION, THEORIES AND LAWS OF; CRESPI EFFECT  132 CONTRAST ILLUSION See APPENDIX A, BOURDON ILLUSION... THEORY OF BEHAVIOR; HABIT AND HABIT FORMATION, LAWS AND PRINCIPLES OF; LEARNING THEORIES AND LAWS; PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING PRINCIPLES, LAWS, AND THE-ORIES CONTIGUITY LEARNING THEORY See ASSOCIATIVE SHIFTING, LAW OF; EFFECT, LAW OF; GUTHRIE’S THEORY OF BEHAVIOR; REINFORCEMENT THEORY; TOLMAN’S THEORY; CONTINGENCY THEORIES WORK MOTIVATION WORK/CAREER/OC-CUPATION, THEORIES OF OF See CONTINGENCY THEORY OF LEADERSHIP... Analysis of a phobia in a five-year-old boy In The complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud Vol 10 London: Hogarth Press Colman, A M (2001) A dictionary of psychology New York: Oxford University Press CONVERSION HYSTERIA PHENOMENON See CONVERSION HYPOTHESIS; FREUD’S THEORY OF PERSONALITY COOLIDGE EFFECT See LOVE, THEORIES OF COOPERATION/COMPETITION, THE-ORIES OF See CONFLICT, THEORIES OF; DEUTSCH’S... 1971) See also HABITUATION, PRINCIPLE/LAW OF; LEARNING THEORIES AND LAWS; OBJECT PERMANENCE PARADIGM/MODEL; PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING PRINCIPLES, LAWS, AND THEORIES; TRANSPOSITION, THEORY OF; WORKING MEMORY, THEORY OF REFERENCES Small, W S (1900/1901) An experimental study of the mental processes of the rat I and II American Journal of Psychology, 11, 133 -165; 12, 206 239 Thorndike, E L (1911) Animal intelligence... Spence, K W (1 937 ) The differential response in animals to stimuli varying within a single dimension Psychological Review, 44, 430 -444 Skinner, B F (1 938 ) The behavior of organisms: An experimental analysis Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall Humphreys, L G (1 939 ) The effect of random alternation of reinforcement on 1 53 the acquisition and extinction of conditioned eyelid responses Journal of Experimental... ATTACHMENT THEORIES; LOVE, THEORIES OF REFERENCES Harlow, H (1958) The nature of love American Psychologist, 13, 6 736 85 Harlow, H., & Zimmerman, R (1959) Affectional responses in the infant monkey Science, 130 , 421 432 Ainsworth, M., Blehar, M., Waters, E., & Wall, S (1978) Patterns of attachment Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum CYBERNETIC THEORY See CONTROL/ SYSTEMS THEORY; TOTE MODEL/HY-POTHESIS CYBERNETIC THEORY OF. .. Pepitone, A., & Newcomb, T (1952) Some consequences of deindividuation in a group Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 47, 38 2 -38 9 Ziller, R C (1964) Individuation and socialization Human Relations, 17, 34 136 0 Singer, J., Brush, C., & Lublin, S (1965) Some aspects of deindividuation and conformity Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1, 35 6 -37 8 Zimbardo, P G (1970) The human choice: Individuation,... LEADERSHIP, THEORIES OF CONTINGENT AFTEREFFECT See APPENDIX A CONTINUITY, LAW/PRINCIPLE OF See GESTALT THEORY/LAWS CONTINUITY THEORY See DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY; SPENCE’S THEORY CONTINUOUS ACTION THEORY OF TROPISMS See LOEB’S TROPISTIC THEORY CONTRADICTION, PRINCIPLE OF See THOUGHT, LAWS OF CONTRAFREELOADING See CRESPI EFFECT EFFECT CONTEXTUALISM, DOCTRINE OF See FORGETTING/MEMORY, THEORIES OF CONTRAST, LAW OF . LAWS/PRIN- CIPLES /THEORIES OF; DIRECT PER- CEPTION THEORY; MIND/MENTAL STATES, THEORIES OF; PERCEPTION (I. GENERAL), THEORIES OF; PER- CEPTION (II. COMPARATIVE AP- PRAISAL), THEORIES OF; UNCON- SCIOUS. FORGETTING/MEMORY, THEORIES OF; INTERFERENCE THEORIES OF FORGETTING. CONTEXTUALISM, DOCTRINE OF. See FORGETTING/MEMORY, THEO- RIES OF. CONTIGUITY, LAW OF. See ASSO- CIATION, LAWS/PRINCIPLES OF; FORGETTING. T. (1972). Dual functions of con- sciousness. Psychological Re- view, 79, 38 3 -39 3. Penfield, W. (1975). The mystery of the mind: A critical study of con- sciousness and the human brain. Princeton,